Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,—blood sprang from his lips—his face grew darkly purple,—and like a huge tree snapped asunder by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables caught him as he fell.
"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the poor Kiddie!"
For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.
"No—no!—don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me—keep him—with me! God is good—good after all!—we shall not—be parted!"
A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley, startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.
"What—what is it?" he stammered. "Not—not——?"
"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's broken!"
One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,—it was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He knelt down, sobbing like a child.
"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us! There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!—no, not if the law was to shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk—an' poor folk aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along, Tom!—you was allus brave an' strong an' hearty—an' there's many of us wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"
Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful, gleamed across his lips.